Polly Apfelbaum Inspired Ceramic Tiles

If you read my bio, you would know that becoming an Art Teacher was a childhood dream of mine. I didn't take a direct path, but each step shaped the teacher that I am today.  There are so many exciting things happening the Art World... how do you keep up? I have a great support system and professional learning network that inspire and support me.

Recently, we all attended the Missouri Art Education Association Spring Conference in Kansas City.  The Kemper Museum had an exhibit by Polly Apfelbaum! WOW! The color, shapes and patterns were eye candy!  After researching and seeking out more of Polly's Art and Exhibitions... I found these amazing abstract tiles she did for an exhibition titled, "The Potential of Women." I knew the children would love her inspiration and they are pure color joy!

We looked at Polly Apfelbaum's work and were inspired. The children worked with clumps of clay that they wedged and rolled out like sugar cookie dough. They were able to choose from many different texture plates, create coils and cut out shapes.  I fired the greenware and allowed Kinders to have a blast with glaze. We used Amaco Crystaltex glazes along with Stroke & Coat. 

I hope you find inspiration in Polly's work. Our tiles will be a permanent installation in honor of one of our retirees. 

Communal Weaving Project - Temporary Fiber Arts Studio

Our first Fine Arts Night at Willow Brook was a celebration of Art in our Community, so we invited artists and crafters to come set up and share their process and works with our families. It was a great evening, we had author/illustrators, film editors, interior designers, ceramists and fine art painters and more...

The students had hands on opportunities with keyboards, orchestra instruments and our Communal Weaving Project.

I have the most amazing grandfather at Willow Brook.  He has two grandsons who I adore, and I don't want them to graduate from Willow Brook! Mr. H is an AMAZING talent. He takes my pinball ideas and brings them to life! This year, I wanted a hands-on fiber arts project for our students and he had it complete in less than 2 weeks.  He designed, painted and built a frame for chicken wire and created a temporary base that will be removed so that it can hang as a permanent work Art in our building. 

With the base, it stands vertically and children are able to work on it from both sides.  The project is 4'x6' and was a success at Fine Arts Night.  Currently, we have it as a temporary center in our Art Studio.  The children are loving it! I have children that come during their recess time to work on it! They are making their mark with sewing notions, ribbon and yarn.

Our communal artwork is an explosion of color and texture! When the piece is completed, it will be a permanent work of Art in our building.

Corner views of the Willow Brook Art Studio

Here is our current state of mind... 

Our studio has gone through a few transformations... We had a traditional set up that was teacher-centered. My furniture addiction has had us upgrade to dining room sets and unique pieces that are reminiscent of home. I want our space to be comfortable and inspiring. I have a few ideas coming to life this summer. (I can NOT wait!) We will have fresh paint and our affinity for pattern and color will be present!

We have Drawing, Painting, Collage, Weaving, Ceramics open- all are modified a bit.  Have a great weekend!

End of the School Year in Art! Transition to Modified Studios

With the end of the school year quickly approaching, one way I try to keep things running smoothly is to "close" down full TAB and transition to modified choices. Here's a list of what we have open.

1. Drawing with all materials available
2. Collage

3. Painting with tempera only on recycled papers (our recycled papers are unclaimed/no name artwork)
4. Community Weaving Board
5. Building Bricks (legos)
6. Architecture
7. Open studio (teacher selected art traps)

Children are allowed to choose from the above list. They should have their sketchbooks with them at all times. I have some step by step sheets for students in case they need them.  I hope you find them helpful and can get full links here: http://bit.ly/twistbracelet and http://bit.ly/CHarperstuffie

Our Art studio has 10 iPad minis and we have "sets" set up for Stop-Motion. Key is to NOT MOVE THE CAMERA! They are exploring and learning. Next year, this will be a studio we open early.  I love the natural collaboration that takes place.

STEAM is a mix of one person hands-on activities from a wonderful grant that we received from the Pattonville Education Foundation.  We have a light board, magnablocks, emido building materials and other great things from Amazon.  In STEAM and ARCHITECTURE, students are supposed to photograph their creations.  From our grant, we added building bricks (imitation Legos) and they are a hit! I would highly suggest purchasing the window and wheel packs. I love seeing what my students have created!

FIBER ARTS we have friendship bracelets and hand-sewing stuffies.

I never really "close" drawing, painting and collage, but there is a natural transition to the "new" pre-set materials that make me feel less like a cleaning lady.

Opening Fiber Arts Studio

We are participating in MiniMatisse #ATCswap and in order for Fiber Arts to be open, children need to choose between a paper weaving or yarn weaving ATC. I made portable anchor charts that will be laminated and accessible in Fiber Arts Studio.  These have been very helpful to refer the children to. I have had posters in my room, but sometimes they fade into the background, so at the moment I am "rethinking" what I want viewable in each studio center.  I am excited to see what the children create!

Getting Started with TAB... Opening Drawing Studio

 This school year, we started off by painting our sketchbooks.  The sketchbooks will be like our ARTifact books, or portfolios... they will house the skills sets and ATC's that we work on throughout the year.

We painted the sketchbooks with either a warm or cool color scheme with tempera.  One half of the room was given red, yellow, orange and white paint, and the other side had green, blue, purple and white.  Students were given a choice on where they wanted to sit. The idea of the painted sketchbooks came from Cassie Stephens!  They were able to explore tempera painting skills such as blending, sgraffito, strokes, drybrushing and we talked about tint.

The students really enjoyed painting their own folders. It gave them a sense of ownership. We used plain manilla folders.  I am excited to see how these work out.

Now that the sketchbooks are ready to go, we spent a lesson on reading the book "What to do With an Idea" by Kobi Yamada and students filled out Where Do Artists get Ideas.  This was given to me by my colleague at Bridgeway Elementary, Ms. Baumann. 

Now we are opening Drawing Studio! Yay!! So exciting to get going in our studio centers.  Students are working on the following handout. You can find a viewable copy here.bit.ly/WCdrawingstudio We are identifying where to find Drawing studio supplies. They are color-coded and organized and children are showing their skills in the boxes.  I know teachers have a different ways of opening studios... some are more flexible with skill sets. I like the accountability of having the uses of different mediums right in there sketchbooks for assessments. I hope this is helpful to anyone giving TAB/Choice a try... you won't ever regret it!

Back to School... How I started the year with TAB/ Choice

Welcome back to school WilcatsCreate fans! We are ready to begin a fun-packed year with lots of new things. I am looking forward to learning and growing my students.

With beginning a new school year, I have been traveling through a lot of REFLECTION.  I have two big take-aways from my 2nd year of teaching TAB/Choice. The first big "take-away" from last school year (my 2nd year of TAB) was to have FAITH in my teaching. So much attention had been placed on my classroom in my 1st year of TAB/Choice, I thought to myself, "I have to be the best at this to have have people come observe me." I relied on my mentor and generous colleagues who practice TAB pedagogy for resources, assessment and planning.  I didn't rely on my own instincts to provide authentic art opportunities for children, I followed others' leads.  My students did create wonderful artworks, full of meaning with enriching artist statements, but I lost sight on PROCESS and sometimes looked at PRODUCT.  Especially with Art Shows, Exhibitions with other art teachers that are project based. I lost confidence in PROCESS.  Takeaway Number 2... forget PRODUCT! Let go of the pressure and have FAITH in yourself and have FAITH in the PROCESS!

So this year!!! I currently have had students working on Painting Skills while decorating the covers of their sketchbooks.  We talked about Tempera paint and different painting skills and terms like tint, sgraffito, blending, drybrushing, etc.   The students set to work with a warm or cool color schemes and had a lot of fun exploring sgraffito and blending. The sketchbook idea came from Cassie Stephens.

We are going to use the sketchbooks to house our studio skills, idea sheets, and ATC's!  We have joined in with MiniMatisse's ATC Swap!  We will be creating 2 1/2x3 1/2 mini art pieces to swap globally with countries like Australia, Cambodia, Germany, Japan, Scotland, Thailand, and the U.K. not to mention 80 schools from all over the United States. More about that soon!!

I hope everyone is off to a great year! I love all the comments and questions I have been getting on the blog! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!